The grandfather clock tolled, echoing on and on. The sound reverberated in the tunnel until Penrose fell to the floor, covered her ears and buried her head in her skirts. The chimes came from everywhere at once, from all around her and even from within her own mind.
She couldn’t think, couldn’t move. She could only endure. Dust and plaster rained down and pelted her body. Please, she wished, let it be a dream. But she knew it wasn’t. A dream doesn’t hit you with plaster hard enough to hurt. Long, agonizing moments passed. It was as if time ceased.
Quietness returned slowly. The rumbling grew less ferocious until finally the ground was still, and the clock fell silent. Only then did she lift her head and take a breath. Dust filled her nostrils. Coughing, wiping her eyes and face, she called out in a panicked voice, “C.J.?”
He didn’t answer. The only sound was a lone splatter of plaster falling to the floor somewhere in the darkness. She must find C.J. and see if he was okay, but it was too dangerous to crawl around without light.
Remembering that there were candles in the hallway, she began inching toward the door. She planned to grab a candle and hopefully find Carrick so that they could hunt for C.J. together. When she reached the door, she fumbled with the latch until it opened. The house was dark and quiet. Still on all fours, she took a deep, shaky breath and called, “C.J.? Carrick, are you here?”
No answer. She crawled out, stood up and brushed herself off, making sure she wasn’t injured. Her hands traveled the length of her torso, but the lack of pain did nothing to reassure her that she was all right. She was not all right.
The air in the foyer was cold—too cold for August in Charleston. The house felt different. It smelled odd, of lemons and lavender. Something was wrong. She knew it in her bones.
“C.J.?” Desperation turned her voice harsh. “Carrick? Please! Answer me.”
Still nothing.
Her eyes adjusted to the light, and she saw the grandfather clock standing against the wall. Standing. Not toppled over as she’d witnessed moments before. She looked around wildly. The table that normally held the candles wasn’t there anymore. The chandelier hung still and straight as if it hadn’t even moved, let alone swung wildly while the earth shook.
But what took the breath right from her lungs were the paintings. They were different—with odd, angular images in them. The more she looked around, the more uneasy she became. Yes, something was very, very wrong.
“Carrick?” she called again, taking minute, untrusting steps toward the great room, her hands pressing the air in disbelief. “Carrick! C.J.? Please?” she kept repeating in a whiny, almost begging manner. She held a last bit of hope that the world would right itself, and she’d see the familiar features of Arundell. Her Arundell. Not this twisted imitation.
When she entered the large parlor, she saw moonlight and shadows dancing around the room, revealing a dark doppelgänger of the room she knew and loved. The cold air around her made it scarier and even less familiar.
Yes, the bones of the room were the same. The same lofty ceiling, the same shape of the windows, even the familiar gouges in the doorway that marked the heights of the Arundell boys. But the essence had changed.
Everything had changed. She tried to reconcile the two different versions of her home—one familiar and one not—but she couldn’t. It simply wasn’t Arundell Manor.
Yet it was.
She went to the window and looked out. The world outside glimmered bright and white beneath the moon.
Bright and white. Snow.
No peaceful pond with a lazy oak tree beside it. No familiar road winding through the Charleston countryside straight to the front doors of her home. Only bare land covered in white stretched all the way to the horizon. Stepping away from the window as if it burned her, she found herself gasping for breath. She wanted to scream, to wail and cry for help, but she had no voice.
She took fast, short steps and went from room to room on the first floor, seeing unbelievable and frightening items everywhere she turned. The house had always been extravagant, but now it seemed garish. Every room was crammed with shiny and bizarre objects, things she didn’t understand and was afraid to touch.
A huge mirror hung on the wall by the kitchen and her own shadowy form reflected back at her. Even she looked different. It was as if a ghost stared at her, coated in dust, hair wild and tumbling, the whites of its eyes glowing brightly. She had a horrible thought as she looked at herself. She’d died.
“I’m not dead,” she said loudly, voicing that horrible thought. A worse thought sprang up behind it. Perhaps she’d been trapped in a kind of purgatory. A place between life and death.
“No.” She shook her head wildly. So did the shadowy figure in the mirror. Leaning forward, she insisted to the image, “I’m alive. Alive.” But her image seemed to stare back at her with accusing eyes and Penrose backed away, shaking.
The kitchen was unrecognizable, with silver equipment that had blue flashing lights on the different pieces. She knew it was a kitchen because of the sink, the knives that hung from the wall and the bowl of fresh fruit sitting atop the counter. A piece of paper lay beside the bowl, and by the dim blue light she read:
Dear Keat,
Welcome back to Arundell. Everything should be in order. The kitchen is stocked. The robots have been delivered and set up. If you need anything, just call. Enjoy your time by yourself. Please, try to relax. Stop worrying. You do your best work that way.
—V
The note called this home Arundell, but unless the world had changed overnight, this was not Arundell. Not the Arundell she knew.
All in the dark we grope along,
And if we go amiss
We learn at least which path is wrong,
And there is gain in this.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Charleston, South Carolina
August 18, 1886
Penrose Heatherton stood at the window, her face lifted to the night sky, hoping for wind. But there was no wind to speak of. The skies were speckled with stars. The moon hung lazy and bright. It was a perfect Charleston summer evening and gave no hint of the troubles that lay ahead of her.
It was hot enough to boil water that night, and she wore her underthings in a futile effort to stay cool. The clothes clung to her damp skin and her black hair hung in sweaty strands. She fanned herself listlessly with the want ads from the newspaper. The effort only made her hotter. It didn’t help that she’d just returned from the kitchen downstairs where she’d washed dishes for hours to help reduce the amount of rent she had to pay.
Rent.
